There's nothing more beautiful than the north woods in winter, when the forest is a cathedral of snow, spruce and sky.

Cross-country skiing at this time of year can be a religious experience; the solitude and the stark beauty of the winter landscape seem to induce contemplation and lofty thoughts.

Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan are honeycombed with beautiful trails. I'd choose the ones at Maplelag, a one-of-a-kind ski resort in northwest Minnesota that is as beloved for its warmth and hospitality as for its well-groomed trails.

If I still had young children, though, I'd go to Afterglow in northeast Wisconsin, a family resort where guests get towed up a tubing hill by snowmobile. There's great snowshoeing, too.

Visit the Wisconsin Historical Museum and the Veterans Museum. Take a free guided tour of the Capitol. Take your kids to the Children's Museum. Eat at some of state's best restaurants. Play in the snow during Winter Festival on President's Day weekend.

And that's just Capitol Square.

Walk a block down State Street and you'll be at the Overture Center for the Arts, which has seven performing spaces and hosts international artists and Broadway shows as well as the local symphony, opera, theater and dance troupes.

The Museum of Contemporary Art is next door. For a vibrant mix of shops and eateries, just keep walking down State Street.

And as a bonus, in February hotels drop their rates during Hotel Week.

In late April, everything starts along the Mississippi River. Pelicans and warblers follow the river north. Wildflowers bloom on sunny hillsides and open goat prairies. The first morel mushrooms pop up through old leaves.

It's a good time to visit Galena, Ill., the appealingly preserved 1850s boom town that groans under a crush of tourists in summer and fall.

At its cousin across the river, Dubuque, be sure to stop by the National Mississippi River Museum.

In Trempealeau, Wis., check out the early wildflowers on Brady's Bluff and ride the Great River State Trail through wildlife refuges and along sloughs and wetlands. Hike on the McGilvray Seven Bridges Trail.

The best are at Pikes Peak State Park near the northeast Iowa town of McGregor; Perrot State Park in Trempealeau; Wyalusing State Park near Prairie du Chien, Wis.; and Great River Bluffs near Winona, Minn.

In the Twin Cities, you can do everything in May that you'd want to do in summer, even taking a dip in its famous lakes if you're lucky (and relatively hardy).

In May, you'll also get a glimpse of its quirkily artistic side at two festivals, the May Day parade in Minneapolis' Powderhorn Park and Art-A-Whirl in the northeast Minneapolis art district, which also holds the densest concentration of nearly 30 craft breweries.

There's nothing more sweet and more fleeting than a July day on a northwoods lake, from coffee on the dock in early morning to the midnight rush from sauna to lake, for a float under the shimmering canopy of stars and northern lights.

Any lake will do. Fishermen like big lakes, such as Minnesota's Leech or Winnibigoshish or Wisconsin's flowages. Families prefer smaller lakes with resorts that have sandy beaches.

Charles Kuralt, of course, chose a lake near Ely in Minnesota's canoe country: "Anyone who has known the deep woods and the blue lakes, for a week or
a season, puts himself to sleep ever afterward with memories of Ely,'' he wrote.

Traditionally, families spend a week in a small resort with housekeeping cabins — which is to say, you cook and clean up for yourself. But there are big luxury resorts, too.

The Circle Tour of Lake Superior is, in my opinion, the best vacation, and August is the best time to take it. The water on the southern shore is warm enough to swim in, the black flies are gone and, if you wait till the last half of the month, the crowds will be gone, too.

In early August, the blueberries are ripe on the Keweenaw Peninsula, and you'll likely see bears when you're out picking.

This is the month to visit places that are packed during peak months, such as the Wisconsin Dells, Minnesota's North Shore and, especially, Door County.

Door County is the favorite hangout of Chicagoans, but there's a lull in the action between summer vacation and fall color. Warmth lingers on the peninsula, wrapped by the waters of Lake Michigan, but hotel prices drop.

Go paddling in the Mink River Estuary, bicycle on county roads or Peninsula State Park, tour the lighthouses, hike in two dozen state natural areas and camp on Rock Island State Park.

It's also harvest time, so stop by farm markets for apples and pumpkins or tour six wineries.

October/Driftless Area

In October, there's a mad rush to see fall color, especially in the forests up north.

After the first weekend, however, the best color is in hardwood forests farther south. In the third weekend, Devil's Lake State Park near Baraboo, Wis., glows orange and gold, and Whitewater State Park in southeast Minnesota has a palette of russet and ocher into the fourth weekend.

The result is a charming hodgepodge of ridges, bluffs and valleys perhaps best known for its bicycle trails: in southeast Minnesota, the Root River State Trail through Lanesboro, and in southwest Wisconsin, the Elroy-Sparta State Trail and the three other trails in a 101-mile system.

Artists also have taken up residence along the winding roads of bluff country, and in fall they host studio tours that combine shopping with scenic drives.

Big, bad Lake Superior is most authentic in November: moody and dramatic, even violent.

Many people come hoping to catch a big storm, like the one that caught the Edmund Fitzgerald in 1975; its sinking is commemorated every Nov. 10 at Split Rock Lighthouse.

But if that fails, hiking is wonderful. The bugs and leaf-peepers are long gone, the absence of leaves opens new vistas and mud has hardened on trails.

Better still, hotel rates drop by up to half. Many people like to rent a cozy cabin or house for Thanksgiving weekend, preferably one with a big wood-burning fireplace and picture windows overlooking the lake.